Thursday, April 04, 2013

The impact of blind budget cuts is beginning to grind on America. But Teapublicans are the happiest when their fellow Americans are in pain. Like dying without health insurance, or starving without food stamps, or not having a job because they vote against jobs bills, or hoping bridges will crumble – which will not affect them because they have god and Jesus on their side.

St. Louis, a center for cutting-edge medical research, will be hit hard by sequestration cuts.

ST. LOUIS — Of all the blinkered buzz-saw cuts in this year’s $85 billion spending sequestration, perhaps none is as counterproductive — or as flat-out boneheaded — as the one now hitting medical research under way in a refurbished industrial expanse of central St. Louis.

Sequester cuts to the rapidly developing process of turning genetic research into a major 21st-century industry — and saving lives and health care costs — are the equivalent of trying to build the Interstate Highway System with no ramps or the transcontinental railroad without the final miles in the middle.

In one of the most farsighted and successful government projects ever, Congress in 1990 authorized a 15-year, American-led effort to map the human genome and to make the results available, under careful conditions to protect pure science and personal privacy, to the world. Completed in 2003 at a cost of $3 billion, the Human Genome Project has now spawned a range of technologies — from tailored drug therapies for cancer to preventative testing to the new big-data discipline of bioinformatics — which not only are generating jobs, but which hold the promise of dramatically reducing health care costs….

Sequestration will increase unemployment. A simple thought that the Teapublican Koch-pawns could care less about – unless it is them.

It will cause a decrease in defense/Pentagon spending but not result in rational cuts; because the Teapublicans and the Dems who cater to neocons will continue to make awful allocations which inure to the benefit of the industrial military complex at the continuing expense of we the people. So there will not be a shutdown of bases in Germany or Europe or Japan. Senseless spending will continue unfortunately.

“…First, there is a tendency for policymakers to target “low-hanging fruit” such as major weapons programs, force structure and end strength. After all, shedding programs and capabilities can often produce large savings quickly. In contrast, some of the most-needed reforms in the areas of military and civilian compensation and excess bases often take years to realize savings. Moreover, bitter political fights such as the controversial 2005 base closure round still linger in the minds of many on Capitol Hill. The prospect of reforming military compensation – even when conducted in a way so as to not affect currently serving troops and retirees – is always a political lightning rod because politicians refuse to use it as an opportunity to add new benefits while simultaneously changing others. …”

It is not going to stop government waste by the Congressional Blockaders of the public good.

“This week marks the one-month anniversary of one of the most terrifying events in American history: the sequester. So, with great trepidation, …

“…There has been some real pain, of course, depending on where you look. The White House cancelled some public tours. The National Archives was forced to return to the hours of operation it maintained prior to 2008. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s staffapparently could no longer afford “high quality” meals in the Capitol cafeteria. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released thousands of undocumented immigrants from detention centers — wait, actually, that happened before the sequester started. Meanwhile, some federal officials continue to warn that eventually terrible things really will happen…. The dreaded furloughs of federal workers have turned out to be less than advertised. …”

Teapublicans just want to make the government smaller, they don’t care who it hurts, as long as the Koch Bros and all their other ultra-rich sociopathic greedy narcissist benefactors approve. And of course Jesus, whose Golden Rule is not for the religious wrong wingers. The fallout is not over.